


If You're Gone

by Tseecka



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Exercise, Death, Drabble, Grief, M/M, Mourning, meme prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 22:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2286153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tseecka/pseuds/Tseecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At least they still have each other.</p><p>-----</p><p>For OTPPrompt's prompt on Tumblr: Imagine one of your OT3 dies. How do the others grieve?</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You're Gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [megs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/megs/gifts), [snefrue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snefrue/gifts).



**If Garrett dies,**  Anders and Fenris spiral wildly, lost and without direction. Despite the fact that they’ve all grown to love one another in their own ways, equally as strong and as fervent, the fact remains that Garrett has been the center around which both of them orbit. They grieve separately, neither one feeling as though they have the right to intrude on the other’s grief, and the estate becomes quiet and dark. The house servants likely comment on it, and get dark glares for their troubles.   
  
     Anders spends all his time at the clinic, healing everyone and everything he can to the point of fractured exhaustion; Fenris on the coast and up Sundermount, killing every beast and monster and lowlife he can find with his sword. Sex, if they have it, is brief and perfunctory, and neither takes much relief from it. One or the other usually leaves until after the other falls asleep, unwilling to lie in bed and acknowledge the empty space of the mattress.   
  
     Eventually, Fenris comes by the clinic, injured badly from a skirmish on the Coast; Anders patches him up in silence, stomach twisting at how close Fenris has come to death. Fenris, for his part, looks at Anders and sees the exhaustion, the way he’s stretched thin and nearly to the breaking point, and they each realize that if they continue this way, they’re going to lose the last love they have. Fenris starts out by quietly observing, “Anders, you’re  _exhausted_ ,” at the same time as Anders blurts out, “I miss him,  _so much_ ,” and that is all they need to have the dams burst and to bring them together once again into each other’s gravity. 

* * *

 **If Fenris is the one who passes**  before the others, the estate becomes a bastion of grief. Anders has never taken loss of a loved one well, and he is determined to give Fenris the honours he deserves. He insists that the house be robed in black, and pulls out his old Renegade robes, wearing them daily despite the way Garrett flinches to look at them. Anders’ sadness manifests as purpose; he throws himself into his work, into the estate, and into taking care of Garrett, and tries hard not to think too long on how things have changed in the time they have been together.   
  
     Garrett, for his part, comes apart at the seams. Fenris was the first man he fell in love with since coming to Kirkwall, even if he isn’t the only one, and he feels the loss like a gaping wound in his heart. He weeps, and cries out, and then goes silent, rejecting food and activity. He spends long hours in the library, leafing through the books that they had read together, reading Fenris’ letters, and Anders will come in with a cup of tea and a tray of light food and sit next to him, reading silently over his shoulder so that he is there when Garrett is overcome and turns to him to weep into his robes. Anders spends agonizing hours working on one last piece of writing, which he reads at Fenris’ memorial. 

* * *

 **Anders’ death,**  if it doesn’t come at the hands of the darkspawn taint, drives Garrett into a rage. He desperately wants someone to blame—even if the death is natural, or borne of sickness. Fenris, who has ever been the one of the three of them with arguably the shortest fuse, finds himself having to calm Garrett. He has grown a great deal since Leandra’s death; he knows, now, how to comfort, or he thinks he does, but when he is anticipating a profound sense of loss and is met instead with Garrett’s anger, he finds himself feeling as useless as ever.   
  
     Garrett’s constant rage at the world for taking Anders from them is infectious, but rather than turn it out on society, Fenris turns it in on himself. He finds himself wondering if he should have listened more, protected Anders better, supported him further than he had. He hears Garrett’s anger and feels that he is the one who deserves it, even though he can’t voice that horrible thought aloud. They end up in shouting matches more often than not, which seem to always end in tears, curled into each other in the middle of the floor with grasping fingers and heaving breaths.   
  
     One day, Fenris breaks, and begs Garrett to just be done with it; to voice what they both know, that it was his failure, and his alone that led to Anders’ death. His claim stops Garrett short, and realizing what his ineffectual anger has done to his remaining lover, the anger fades almost overnight. He still has someone to protect, after all, and he is overcome by the need to reassure Fenris that Anders’ loss is not his fault. Garrett’s reassurance banishes many of the doubts and fears that torment Fenris, and they are finally able to move on.


End file.
